Last week I wrote about LegalFling.io , a particularly ridiculous app that @didic linked me to. I had no plans of making "weird and silly apps" a weekly column, but then @poet sent me a link to Die With Me. If this keeps up, this is becoming a regular series.
Unlike LegalFling, that is mostly an example of bad use of blockchain technology, Die With Me feels more like a contemporary work of art.
According to the simple app description, Die With Me is
The chat app that you can only use when you have less than 5% battery.
Enter the chatroom full of people with a low battery.
Die together in a chatroom on your way to offline peace.
You can purchase the app on Google Play and iTunes.
App or art?
This app aims at a very specific audience - people who are running out of power on their mobile phone and have nothing better to do with their remaining 5% than talk to strangers in a similar situation.
Given that people don't often waste the last of their power like that, and the fact the app is a paid one, it's safe to assume it's more of a social experiment and a form of contemporary art than an app the developers (Dries Depoorter & David Surprenant) intended be used by the masses. It does, however, hold an interesting novelty effect, and I can see at least a few of my friends investing the $0.99 in trying it out.
Why this is not an app review
I don't like to write about apps that have been released without reviewing them first. I usually download and play around with an app before writing a post about it. But in this case, I ask your forgiveness - I did not purchase this app. Not because I can't afford the 99 cents, but because I have a phobia of low battery.
My LG v10 holds a nice charge, and I never leave the house without my trusty powerbank and a spare cable. The odds of you catching me with less than 25% power is unlikely. So is why letting my phone charge drop to 5% makes me feel uneasy. This I find interesting and it is, without a doubt, one of the developers' intentions; to make people consider how they feel when their mobile phone is about to "die".
- When your mobile turns off, do you "die" with it?
- Can your disconnection from the online world feel like a form of death?
- And is it really a time when you wish to connect with strangers in the same situation, rather than loved ones?
I am grateful to the developers for creating this curious app, even if its main goal is social commentary using the mobile app medium for a new type of contemporary art.